India’s tech hub of Bengaluru is struggling with water shortages amid a drought, with the crisis expected to escalate as summer approaches.
Authorities are supplying water to residents in the city of 13 million people using tankers as a lack of rainfall dries up thousands of underground water sources. The Karnataka government has imposed a cap on how much the tanker suppliers can charge to prevent price gouging.
Bengaluru is home to the country’s US$194 billion information technology services industry. The crisis was a long time coming, said Shashank Palur, a Bengaluru-based hydrologist with the think tank Water, Environment, Land and Livelihood Labs.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Bengaluru is one of the fastest growing cities in the world and the infrastructure for fresh water supply is not able to keep up with a growing population,” he said.
Indian cities have intermittently struggled with water shortages due to the over-use of groundwater and climate change causing a shift in the weather and reducing much-needed rainfall. With summer approaching, temperatures can climb to as high as 40°C, exacerbating the situation.
El Nino, a natural phenomenon that affects weather patterns worldwide, along with the city receiving less rainfall in recent years mean “recharge of groundwater levels did not happen as expected,” Palur said.
A new piped water supply from the Cauvery River, about 100km from the city, has also not been completed, he said.
Residents should use water “very judiciously” and for essential purposes only, Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board chairman Ram Manohar told a news channel earlier this month.
About a third of the city’s residents depend on groundwater, the Associated Press reported, citing authorities as saying some of the 13,900 wells in the city have been drilled to 457m.
About 7,000 wells have dried but authorities are making other arrangements, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said last week, adding that there is no crisis.
Identifying other sources and using them smartly, for example by reusing treated wastewater in the city “so that the demand for fresh water reduces,” could also help, Palur said.
Rapid urbanization has also contributed to the water shortage in the country. In 2019, Chennai in Tamil Nadu had a water crisis for weeks due to heatwaves and a bad monsoon in 2018.
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday. While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said. While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times —
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday received government approval to deploy its advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process at its second fab currently under construction in Japan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a news release. The ministry green-lit the plan for the facility in Kumamoto, which is scheduled to start installing equipment and come online in 2028 with a monthly production capacity of 15,000 12-inch wafers, the ministry said. The Department of Investment Review in June 2024 authorized a US$5.26 billion investment for the facility, slated to manufacture 6- to 12nm chips, significantly less advanced than 3nm process. At a meeting with
Standard Chartered Taiwan on March 26 announced that it has partnered with international fintech firm FinIQ to build an “Automated Structured Products Pricing Platform.” The bank is also introducing products from global issuers including Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Barclays PLC and BNP Paribas SA. The new platform enables an end-to-end process whereby it finds the most competitive pricing across multiple issuers in a matter of minutes, followed by automated documentation and transaction execution, which significantly shortens time-to-market and delivers a superior wealth management experience. Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan CEO Anthony Yu (游天立) said: “Standard Chartered is increasingly leveraging its wealth management
RSS